The Leap

Internet Marketing Soars!

While flying home from Florida today I saw this note in the Money Section of USAToday (Friday, May 25, 2007). I know this will be a point of interest for many of the readers here.

"Internet advertising sales soared 35% to $16.9 billion in the USA last year as marketers accelerated their pursuit of website audiences. Fourth quarter Internet ad spending reached a record $4.8 billion, also a 35% gain, the interactive Advertising Bureau said on Thursday, citing a survey conducted with accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers."

Internet retailing sales show no sign of slowing down in the near future. Companies that have relied on brick and mortar sales in the past will continue to move and rely on internet sales for future business viability. Those companies that are able to deliver a community of loyal buyers will become more and more valuable in this e-commerce dependent economy. Our Team is right in the middle of the sweet spot of this new economy!

Ask.com Launches New Algorithm!

The search engine wars are heating up this summer! Ask.com has played the "also ran" in fourth place in overall internet searches behind Yahoo, Microsoft, and the goliath of Google. Microsoft just bought Yahoo and many industry insiders feel this merger will have the same disastrous consequences as the heralded merger of AOL and Time Warner a few years ago. The question is can the cultures of a software company who struggled with media, take over a large media company and mesh the cultures and make it successful? While this merger is finalized, Ask.com has stayed the course and is launching a new algorithm which it thinks will improve search results for users. A massive advertising campaign is heating up and TV commercials are being launched nationwide to generate a buzz about their new improved service.

In the Thursday May 3, 2007 issue of the Wall Street Journal, Jessica Vascellaro and Lauren Tara LaCapra highlight the campaign by Ask.com to generate a grassroots buzz about the new service. "Algorithm is a funny word that people don't hear every day" said Jim Lanzone, Chief Executive of Ask.com. This phase of the campaign won't go into details about how the algorithm works he said. "The point is to introduce technology in a non-technical way."

I could not agree more. I don't need to know how it works, I just want good results from the searches I do daily. It will be interesting to see the big three search engines do battle over the summer and see if Ask.com can take much needed market share away from Google and Microsoft with their new algorithm and marketing campaign.

Try it out for yourself and let me know what you think about Ask.com and how it compares to the others. I must admit I have been a loyal Google user but I am very interested to see how Ask.com measures up.

Favorite Quotes

"Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it."

Lou Holtz

"The desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world."

John le Carre

"In matters of style swim with the current; in matters of principle stand like a rock."

Thomas Jefferson